Phyllis Leah Speser, who goes by Leah, is a successful entrepreneur who, in 1980, founded one the first knowledge/technology transfer and commercialization companies, Foresight Science & Technology, and grew it into a global 70-person firm before retiring and handing the reigns to the next generation of management. Today she is Senior Consultant to the Director of the Research and Innovation Foundation, where she is the lead for developing the Cypriot national knowledge transfer system and supporting the development of the Cypriot Research, Development, and Innovation Ecosystem. In her over 45-year career, she has supported commercialization of technologies helping her clients collectively obtain billions of dollars in new revenues.
She is the author of The Art & Science of Technology Transfer and co-author of Open Innovation Essentials for Small and Medium Enterprises among other publications. She holds a J.D. in Law, a Ph.D. in Political Science, and is a Registered Technology Transfer Professional, a certified New Product Development Profession, and a certified Emergency Medical Technician and Wildland Firefighter. She has taught at universities around the world, consulted for governments around the world and the United Nations, keynoted professional society meetings in the US, Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America, and done a lot of other things including punching cattle in Montana, winning government awards in Artificial Intelligence, being a registered lobbyist in Washington DC, tree farming redwoods in Northern California, serving on Wildland fire Incident Management Teams Command Staff, and raising two children as a single mother, the accomplishment she is most proud of.
